Passages

[tolbs1010]

John Irvin, director of the Alec Guinness-starring Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,Turtle Diary and Ghost Story (1981)

The Dogs Of War holds up well. Saw it again recently. Underrated.

[dadaistnun]

Keiko Kishi -- she was in The Makioka Sisters, Early Spring, and Kobayashi's The Inheritance but is maybe best known as the snow maiden in Kwaidan. (And I just learned from BlueSky she was the mother-in-law of the Dirty Three's Warren Ellis.)

[colinr0380]

Keiko Kishi -- she was in The Makioka Sisters, Early Spring, and Kobayashi's The Inheritance but is maybe best known as the snow maiden in Kwaidan. (And I just learned from BlueSky she was the mother-in-law of the Dirty Three's Warren Ellis.)

And in another Kon Ichikawa film, the recently released by Radiance, Ten Dark Women/Ten Women In Black. It would be interesting to see some of those later Ichikawa films that she appeared in, 1991's Noh Mask Murders and 2001's Kah-chan some time as well.

And she also appears in that Sydney Pollack directed, Paul Schrader written, Robert Mitchum starring film The Yakuza.

[hearthesilence]

Keith Caesar a.k.a. Keith Keith of Funky 4 + 1.

"That’s The Joint" is one of THE great singles of early hip-hop, but it also has the special distinction of being the very first hip-hop number ever performed on national television when Debbie Harry brought Funky 4 + 1 on to Saturday Night Live on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1981.

[FrauBlucher]

Their videos are fun to watch. I even enjoyed the sloppy one they did for Back to the Future Part III more than the movie itself.

The Johnny Carson Show a little gimmicky but it's fun

[James Stock]

https://wcyb.com/news/local/country-mus ... dies-at-80

Dolly Parton

[The Curious Sofa]

Well, that ruined my day.

[Feego]

Shelley Fabares

[hearthesilence]

Love Dolly Parton. This day fucking sucks.

[zedz]

One of the greatest singer / songwriters from the singer / songwriter era, though she's rarely lumped in with that lot.

The Bridge

[colinr0380]

Steel Magnolias would certainly be a Criterion-worthy release of all the films she appeared in. I also remember the amusing way that her follow up film to Nine To Five with director Colin Higgins, the Burt Reynolds film The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas (probably best known now for inspiring the Simpsons brothel episode) got briefly caught up in the UK's video nasties furore because (along with Sam Fuller's The Big Red One) the title made it seem like an explicit adult film!

[hearthesilence]

IMHO the peak years of her music span from 1967 to 1975, and those were also her most prolific years as a songwriter, but much of her image in pop culture came together in the years that followed. (Much of it built on what she had accomplished before then, but I think most people who don't even listen to her music know her for the image she developed in those years when she became a pop icon.)

[The Curious Sofa]

She also released some fantastic albums later in her career, I love The Grass Is Blue and Little Sparrow. She wasn't just a great singer-songwriter and a very likeable screen presence, she also appeared to be one of the few major celebrities about whom no one had a bad word to say.

[hearthesilence]

From Roger Ebert's memoir:

In Dallas for the premier of 9 to 5, I had an uncanny experience, and on the plane home to Chicago I confessed it to Siskel: I had been granted a private half hour with Dolly Parton, and as we spoke I was filled with a strange ethereal grace. This was not spiritual, nor was it sexual. It was healing and comforting. Gene listened, and said, "Roger, I felt the exact same thing during my interview with her." We looked at each other. What did this mean? Neither one of us ever felt that feeling again. From time to time we would refer to it in wonder.

It's also ridiculous how much she gave and how she never talked about it unless she had to. Look at the Moderna vaccine - nobody knew until someone noticed there was a thank you to her foundation buried at the end of the literature. I'm sure there's a whole lot more that's still unknown.

Probably countless stories like this one:

Years ago I was sitting in a bar and this dude sat down and talked about working for Dolly. Apparently she was really big on drug testing so she fired him. I asked him if he was mad at her for firing him.

He was like, "No man, she put me through rehab, I'm just a fuck up. She's still putting my kids though school and keeping a roof over their heads. She never had kids and she's still a better parent than me. That woman is a saint."

EDIT: Her reps issued another statement that revealed that she passed away after "a brief battle with cancer."

[hearthesilence]

I can’t say I had much of a relationship with Dolly Parton, other than being a big fan. I did visit Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN, which was cool for many reasons, but mostly just to see her Smokey Mountains birthplace (the Smokey Mountains are spectacular, btw). I do have this anecdote to share, which feels pretty minor on the scale of possible anecdotes one could share about Dolly, but it’s important to me…

When I made my second film “Putty Hill”, there was a scene we shot with a lot of people singing Karaoke. We didn’t plan in advance what songs folks would sing, so we got in a bind when it came time to license the masters. There were songs by a couple very big artists, who shall remain nameless, who would not even entertain the notion of granting rights to a little film made for less than $100k. But Dolly and her team were enthusiastic and responsive and accepted a symbolic fee for her children’s charity, “Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library”. In the scene Sky Ferreira sang “I Will Always Love You”. I will always love Dolly for her music, her charity and her generosity.

RIP QUEEN

[ChunkyLover]

Tim Curry:
https://www.the-independent.com/arts-en ... 81612.html

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

This has been such an awful week. I was more familiar with Curry from his voice acting gigs - he singlehandedly got me interested in that field and its many actors - but it was an immediate attraction. I think it was Pirates of Dark Water where I first heard him. Anyone remember that? I'm just now learning that Jodi Benson was in it too! I was surprised to learn much later that he was also a terrific actor. (Being raised by Christian fundamentalists you can imagine that stuff like IT let alone RHPS was kept far far away so it was awhile before I saw him in anything live action aside from fragments of Clue on Comedy Central.) Also a great reader for the Sabriel audiobook. It's been years and years since I saw the cartoon but anytime I remember his Nigel Thornberry voice it never fails to make me laugh. It's deeply sad to be alive when such a talented, lovely, one of a kind guy passes on.

[Lowry_Sam]

Tim Curry & Dolly Parton were not the 80-year old celebrity that I was looking forward to seeing in the obituaries this year.

[James Stock]

We've lost three Home Alone 2 actors this year, Tim Curry, Brenda Fricker, and Catherine O'Hara.

[denti alligator]

I can think of another I wish would make four.

[colinr0380]

I know the Rocky Horror Picture Show was the big one, but I still most fondly remember as a kid first seeing Tim Curry as the Butler in Clue. Plus his devil in the same year's Legend. And then a few years later as Pennywise in the mini-series version of Stephen King's IT (which is still the best adaptation of that material)

And whilst it is going relatively unmentioned, he really seemed to have a ball chewing the scenery and rolling his R's as a Russian general in the FMV cutscenes of the Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 video game from 2008! He was in quite a few video game roles, from voice work in Wing Commander III (not appearing in the FMV cutscenes there, which instead had Mark Hamill and Malcolm McDowell in them), and voicing the main character in the point-and-click Gabriel Knight games (opposite Mark Hamill again in that "Sins of the Fathers" entry)

He also turns up in the Duckman series as the villainous nemsis "King Chicken"!

[knives]

He also had a great late turn in Over the Garden Wall. It’s crazy to think he was nearly the animated Joker too.